Calling Pets “Pets” Is a Thought Crime

It’s time for a new edition of the Newspeak dictionary. According to the pointy-headed circus clowns who pass down surrealist moral judgments from atop their ivory towers, our current vocabulary oppresses animals:

Animal lovers should stop calling their furry or feathered friends “pets” because the term is insulting, leading academics claim.

Domestic dogs, cats, hamsters or budgerigars should be rebranded as “companion animals” while owners should be known as “human carers”, they insist.

Other forbidden terms include “critters” and “beasts.” Pet owners are not to be referred to as “owners,” because this “harks back to a previous age” when animals were considered to be animals.

The term “wildlife” is not to be used because “For most, ‘wildness’ is synonymous with uncivilized, unrestrained, barbarous existence.” In actuality, academics have discovered that tigers and hyenas sit around tea tables in the jungle, sipping Earl Grey with their pinkies raised.

Certain idiomatic expressions also have to go:

Phrases such as “sly as a fox, “eat like a pig” or “drunk as a skunk” are all unfair to animals, they claim.